The series of talks 'Praying the Psalms' held during
Lent has been a great blessing: we are a learning and praying community; we’ve
been drawn into lives of others with great wit and wisdom; insight and
challenge. There’s been quite a bit of laughter along the way; as well as a
deepening of our knowledge of God and each other.
Praying the psalms as
we move into Holy Week, we speak, sing and hear our Psalms afresh: images,
language, symbol, re-enactment; the words Jesus knew; hearing them in light of death
and resurrection; yet remaining our words.
My talk was in a way the culmination of all we’ve shared together. *
Canon Dr Hazel Whitehead drew on Walter Brueggemann's work and talked about orientation, disorientation
and reorientation: that patters expresses the reality we undergo this week.
Drawing on the knowledge and musicianship of our Organist and Master of the Choristers, Katherine Dienes-Williams, we explored the liturgical expression
of these texts: their musicality and setting; hearing some in different
registers.
The reality of sleep - and wakefulness - is a strand running through the psalms: Canon Dr Andrew Bishop, reflected on how that related to discipleship, the nature of God, the keeping of Sabbath and that the sleep of death itself.
Canon Martyn Neale faith and ministry have been shaped by music and the mystery of word
and sacrament. He spoke to us about how we faced the challenge of the imprecatory psalms; reflecting on human nature and the liberation of honesty before God.
When we think of
psalms in the context of Holy Week, perhaps we leap to psalm 22 and the
heartrending cry ‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
The words of the
Psalms on our Lord’s lips; but they are
also on ours, day by day. This evening may well take a more contemplative turn;
it’s a bit risky on my part; but hopefully words, images and conversations will
form as well asinform us.
How do the Psalms
help us to be drawn more deeply into the drama of Holy Week? How does reciting
them enable us to reflect more deeply on the mystery of salvation?
The crowds had them
on their lips as they sang: as they sang and shouted hosanna to the son of
David; the disciples may have sung them as they left the upper room and walked
to Gethsemane.
Walter Brueggemann
contends that the Psalms are the ‘most reliable theological, pastoral, and
liturgical resource given us in the biblical tradition’. Yes, we do find in them a voice for our own
hopes and doubts, joys and afflictions, laments and praise; but there’s more to it than that. As songs of disarray and of surprising new
life, might we find in them, a way of being caught up in Jesus’ death and resurrection?
Over the coming days, I'll share the session I contributed to the Lent series - in words and images - enabling us to be draw afresh into Holy Week through Psalms.
© Julie Gittoes 2016
*
Talks will be available online: www.guildford-cathedral.org both in text and audio format.
*
Talks will be available online: www.guildford-cathedral.org both in text and audio format.
